


everything stays

by hannibals



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannibals/pseuds/hannibals
Summary: "I exist in two places, here and where you are."Corpse Song,Margaret Atwood.
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 18
Kudos: 77





	1. PART I // RING

Blake dreams of the bright green leaves of his mother’s cherry tree garden. He watches his mother bend to pick up another woven basket from the ground, brown hair shrouding the side of her face from the sun. Her fingertips are stained pink from the cherries, they’d been picking them all afternoon.

His own fingers are stained an unnatural red, he is dying beyond this place, Tom tries to not let that get the best of him. He weaves through the lush garden to his mother uninhibited, helping her pick from the low branches of their oldest tree.

“You can always come home, Tom.” She says, as though it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“I don’t think I can, this time.” His brow furrows. He continues to dig in between the green leaves, the summer sun overhead is burning his skin.

She hums in response, and he feels a cold hand skirt across the side of his face. Her fingers press at the crease between his brows, smoothing it out. Her face looks oddly calm, skin a murky white even beneath the unrelenting heat.

“My friend needs me, ma. I’ve got to help him—” He takes one step backward, then another. “He _needs_ me.”

Breath exits his chest in one punched out exhale, and he’s crashing to the dirt of the garden with broken cherry pods crushed and wound in between his fingers.

A horrid sinking feeling pulls at the last of his consciousness, plucking at the static rhythm of his heart, and he’s falling into the inky void—

Then peeking out into the blue darkness of a medical tent.

His head is throbbing fiercely, and he really can’t feel much from his upper chest downward. But, he’s relatively certain he’s alive. His fingers are bunched up tightly in the blanket wound around his midsection.

He feels so _incredibly_ stupid.

So much for being kind, it only got him gutted by a German pilot. He wonders if he’ll live beyond this pain. Tom’s body is doing a good job of staying completely still despite the rapid beating of his heart, but if he even shifted, he’s certain he’d start screaming all over again. Tom can feel mounds of makeshift pillows beneath his back, supporting him upward instead of letting his torso sink to the earth below.

He breathes out harshly through his mouth once, to check if this is all real. He watches his chest collapse with it, so this must be—

“Blake?”

_Schofield._

Attempting to look through the crusty slits of his eyes isn’t faring well for Tom, he’s not sure how to respond, so he begins crying instead. Pain pulses through him in bursts, he’s never felt anything like it. Scraping his knees on pavement has no comparison to the hollow feeling of his midsection. He’s being torn in two.

“Oh, jesus— Blake,” Schofield says, Tom can hear his breathing just near his cheek, a cold palm chafes at the side of his face. “I’m gonna get somebody, just let me—”

The distant _thump_ of a chair against the dirt floor reaches his ears, Schofield’s gravelly voice yelling for somebody, he can’t quite hear the name on account of his own wailing muffling his thoughts. Rapidly shuffling pairs of feet soon fill the tent as they reach the side of his cot.

He’s not sure where he is, or how the hell he’d got there, but Schofield’s performed a miracle somehow. That big brain of his came to use lugging him across the countryside, probably.

“Lance Corporal, we’re going to check your bandages,” He hears before two sets of hands attempt to help him into an upward lean.

His screams must echo across Europe, and it’s not like the medics are doing a bad job, probably the most hospitable and gentle they could possibly be with his wound, but Tom was in incomparable _pain._

He’s trying to muffle his sobs through clenched teeth. One of the medics barks at Schofield to _hold him somehow god dammit._ Not a moment later, he feels Scho’s hands holding his back and the left side of his torso, sliding up behind him to support Tom with his own body.

“Breathe through your nose, Blake,” Scho says from just beside his ear. Tom huffs irritated breaths out in response.

He can feel the stickiness of his skin as they peel back the soiled bandages. Tom is grateful for his limited sight, because Schofield inhales a breath that sounds on the verge of vomiting when he sees what lies underneath.

He doesn’t know how he hasn’t passed out by now. They douse the stitched wound in some slick burning substance, carefully patting it down without irritating it further. Then they wrap him up again like the whole ordeal had never happened.

Blake is shaking against Schofield’s chest for the entire duration of this process, and he’s going to have to find a way to apologize to him in the future for all this… _fuss._ If he lives through the potential of infection, and the recuperation that comes afterward, he’ll find a way to pay him back somehow.

They lay him back down to his cot carefully, avoiding any movements that could stretch his stitches. Blake’s face is clenched with horror, his blanket is wound around his legs, and he is desperately wanting to sleep and not wake up.

His face feels tight from the salty tear tracks. He hears Schofield thank the medics quietly, he’s doing a great job at sounding put together after watching them wipe away blood and muck from his stomach.

Tom’s breathing is harsh and uneven, and Schofield quickly returns to his side. He hears the sloshing of water in a bucket, and Tom cracks his eyes open long enough to watch Schofield wringing out droplets from a wet rag.

Schofield gingerly wipes at Blake’s face, he feels like fire in comparison to the harsh cold of the water making rivulets across his cheeks. Schofield dabs it over his cracked lips and beneath his nose.

“You’re feverish, we’ve got to get that down some…” Schofield says, folding the rag across his forehead and pressing it there, Tom can feel the scrape of his fingers carding back his bangs.

What Blake is most confused about at present is how the hell he got here, and _why_ Schofield is here at his side.

“Why am I alive?” Tom says.

Schofield doesn’t respond to that immediately. Blake watches the shadows cast on his skin by the bob of his throat as he tries to find words.

“Because I couldn’t just leave you there.” Schofield says simply.

Schofield goes on to explain the passing British unit he encountered shortly after Tom lost consciousness— how he’d begged for their medics to help him, and how Captain Smith allowed for one of their medical trucks to take Tom off his hands while Schofield ran halfway across the countryside.

They’d taken Blake, patched the gaping hole in his stomach up as best they could, then shipped him off to the 2nd Devons camp a day after Schofield had arrived. Blake was placed there for continued observation until transport to a hospital was possible.

However, transportation to a hospital was vastly unavailable, seeing that the Germans were at a total standstill against them.

It sounded a bit like a fairytale in its convenience. If it weren’t for the pain, Tom would be convinced this was some elaborate continuation of his fever dream.

His head had a certain knack at twisting up reality on him lately. But he couldn’t care any less about that at this moment.

“So you… got the dispatch to ‘em.” Tom says, trying to shift himself a little closer to Schofield.

Schofield holds his shoulder steady. _Stay there_. “I did,” He’s quiet for a moment, Blake watches the tension build in his jaw, “Colonel Mackenzie is a piece of work.”

Always so polite, and no reason for it. Tom smiles at Schofield knowingly, he looks up to the canvas ceiling. Schofield has sat himself so close to the edge of Tom’s cot that he can feel the heat radiating off of his hunched form.

“I also saw your brother.” Schofield says quietly, “He looks almost exactly like you from the back— thought I found your doppelgänger.”

“Think I’m not as handsome as he is?” Tom says, grinning at Scho. He doesn’t look very amused, but the corner of his mouth ticks up slightly.

“I would’ve much rather preferred to see you on your feet. He was watching over you all day until I told him to get some rest.”

Tom swallows thickly, his voice feels incredibly weak, “Ma is gonna kill me when I get home, I’m certain of it.”

“You’ll be fine. I’ve already sent out a letter to her this morning.” Schofield leans even closer in his chair with a creak of the wood. “I told her everything she needed to hear. Everything you told me.”

Blake looks at him closely, his eyes adjusting slowly to the dim orange lamplight. He looks like a wraith, the bags under his eyes tell Blake he hasn’t been sleeping— or choosing not to. His bangs are matted to his forehead in tufts, but his face is clean.

Tom reaches over the side of his cot to pull at the sleeve of Scho’s bandaged hand. “Let me see.”

Schofield gently puts his hand into his open palm, Blake’s careful not to clench it in his grip.

“Had to quiet a German with it,” Schofield says, staring at Blake’s look of concern with an unnatural calm, he’s far away somewhere. “It was putrid by the time I got here, don’t know how they didn’t have to chop it off.”

“I’m glad they didn’t have to. I can't say the same for mine— don’t know what they’d do if it got infected.” Tom puffs out a weak laugh, biting his bottom lip between his teeth.

Schofield is quiet for a long moment, looking at their joined hands. The barest pressure from Schofield’s fingertips tells Blake that this is not a dream. Blake watches him shift and dig through his pockets with his free hand, the click of metal sounding from Schofield’s inner jacket. He reveals to Tom his two gold rings, he’d kept them safe.

Blake watches as Scho fits them carefully back onto his fingers, marveling at how close they are. He wonders if the vaguely fuzzy feeling in his stomach is his wound blooming open, he’s not exactly the most lucid at the moment.

Scho leans his elbows on his knees and takes Blake’s hand to his mouth afterwards, holding it there between both palms. It feels a bit like ascension.

“We’ll get you better in no time.” Schofield says, his words muffled against Blake’s knuckles.

The next few weeks pass by in a haze. When he’s not sleeping for hours on end and getting his wound thoroughly inspected, he’s playing cards with Schofield and his brother in between afternoon drills.

Tom is trying his hardest to appear lively, but when night falls his paranoia rises in reaction to warped shadows and the smallest noises. He knows that there is nobody coming to hurt him here, but the irrational fear stays. It makes him lose a few hours of sleep each night, until Schofield’s presence quiets these thoughts.

Their form of usual codependency has warped into something more intimate over time, and Blake has no idea how to approach it.

Schofield’s there most nights, cross-legged in that wooden chair and reading until his chin drops to his chest, a thin blanket wrapped over his shoulders. Tom always snores loud enough to wake him up. He supposes he’s somewhat part of the reason why Schofield isn’t sleeping. That coupled with what Tom’s certain is severe head trauma.

Tom badgers him into eventually sleeping in his own cot in the adjacent medical unit. “A wooden chair can’t be _that_ comfortable.” Blake says, but there’s some sort of unspoken loyalty in the set of Schofield’s mouth that makes him appear even more stubborn when Blake suggests he should leave his side.

And he feels the same way too, but Schofield’s concussion won’t get any better listening to him snore like mad all through the night.

Joseph always visits early in the morning to check him over with a medic in tow. He makes sure to snatch up the good bread for them both before everyone else gets to the mess for breakfast.

Joe whisks into the medical tent at the crack of dawn, carrying a breeze of spring air in with him as he plops himself into Scho’s wooden chair, straddling it and leaning his arms over the back as he hands Tom a bowl of steaming chicken soup and fresh bread.

They share a comfortable silence for the first few minutes as they eat their breakfast, Joseph sipping his coffee and digging through his pockets to fish out the book Schofield had lent him days prior. Something about a compilation of old English fairy tales.

Tom is slowly able to sit himself upward, supported by many more makeshift pillows at his back, but nonetheless, its progress. He eats the hot soup like a starving man, scrubs his dry piece of bread against the inside of his bowl to eat up the last dregs of vegetables and broth.

“They told me you might be able to get up in about two weeks time, I wouldn’t push it, though.” Joseph says, creasing the corner of his page to remember where he left off for later. He stuffs the book back into his breast pocket.

“I’ll take whatever they say with a grain of salt,” Tom says, tapping his fingers on the side of his bowl. “But, I am terribly bored here when you and Scho aren’t around. Not much to do but wait and read…”

“You’re the one that decided to be a good soul and get yourself—” Joseph waves a hand, his face seems to grow tired, creases pulling at the edges of his eyes. “You both weren’t careful enough.”

“ _Schofield_ was careful, he told me not to get too close. I didn’t listen.”

Joseph doesn’t seem to like hearing this, he turns his face away and glares down at the dirt floor. He wants to remove himself from this conversation, he doesn’t want to acknowledge that his little brother nearly died without him being there.

Tom continues, “He knew better than I did. He saved my life.”

“I don’t resent him, if that’s what you’re thinking. I resent what happened to you.” Joseph gestures at him with his coffee cup, nearly sloshing the steaming liquid over the brim. “And I resent that your efforts went to waste trying to help that man. I just wish that...“

Tom waits patiently, he knows that Joseph despises this war too, he’s just slightly better at hiding it. It’s easier pretending to be the golden boy.

“I wish that none of this had to happen. I wish we didn’t have to kill for this whole bloody mess to get solved.”

“Careful saying that, your commanders might hear,” Tom snickers, then snatches Joseph’s cup from his hands and chugs the last of its contents. It burns like hell against his throat.

“You sure that you should be having coffee? Maybe you’ll spring a leak.” Joseph balks, a smile slowly brightening up his features.

“Well, I’ll let my mortal wound decide that for me.”

━━━

Schofield _hates_ the waiting.

He hates knowing that he could have been home now with his family, enjoying the spring. Instead he’s spending his springtime in a camp with hundreds of other irritated men thinking the exact same thing.

He’s never been particularly anxious for the change of seasons, but the way that the Blake brothers reminisce about winter in years past makes him particularly restless. Their memories of eating mounds of latkes and sufganiyot for the holidays, spending their time together for days on end— it’s making him terribly homesick.

“Our ma would take one look at you and think you were far too skinny, _far_ too skinny.” Joseph says, crouching down to appear smaller in height with hands placed on his hips, Tom is wildly laughing on his cot and holding his stomach. It seems that his imitation of their mother is fairly accurate.

“You’re gonna make my stitches pop—”

“Far too skinny! Too _long_ and skinny!” Joseph howls, and the wounded soldiers that surround them all turn and stare for a moment while Schofield turns bright pink at the ears.

Where Tom had bright eyes and filled cheeks, Joseph was much sharper in comparison. They had the same humor that lit up the air around them, as though they weren’t at war, just boys playing soldier in a muddy field.

The Blake brothers have taken to adopting him into their stories. They describe their home, make cherry picking sound like an art form, and often wonder about how their mother is doing back in the English countryside, _probably baking too bloody much, huh Joe?_

He misses his family so much that the picture he has of his sisters in his tin is starting to get the ink scrubbed off the edges from his fingertips.

They pass around the photo to each other, Joseph peering at it closely before passing it off to Tom. They both debate about which sister that Will looks like most until Will snatches it back from them, he doesn’t want it to get creased in the event one of them gets too heated in debate. They often forgot about the world around them when they became absorbed in each other.

Weeks pass, and May feels as though it’s being stretched out beyond the boundary of time itself. Summer is coloring their dreary patch of dirt with mosquitoes and the occasional curious rabbit. The land is trying to reclaim itself.

The entire infantry is restless, no move is being made on either side. Joseph is trying his hardest not to appear deathly ill with anxiousness about his potential future on the war front. Schofield tries to calm him with reassurances, but Joseph is always quick to pull a mask over himself.

Schofield finds Joseph’s way of coping to be reminiscent of his eldest sister’s. Attempting to be the bigger person to assuage the fears of their younger siblings, even when Schofield can see right through them both. Being the middle child was never easy, either.

Tom eventually gets up by himself, so very slowly at first. He slides himself to the side of his cot and swings his legs over one morning, nearly giving Will a heart attack as he wakes up from a deep sleep. He curses loudly and violently as he pushes at Tom’s shoulders for him to _lay back down you damn fool._

“Hold on Scho, _wait_ , just let me try myself, please.”

Schofield hovers, his head buzzing with anxiousness as Blake shakily raises himself from the cot to a hunched over standing position. He worries that his stitches might stretch from the effort, so Scho holds out his arm, which Blake takes gratefully.

Blake stays that way for a number of minutes, his eyes closed as he strains to keep himself from falling into Will’s side. Blake’s free hand is placed over his wound.

The first thing Will notices is how much thinner he’s become over two months of recovery, and how much older he seems, he’s drained of his usual color.

Far too skinny, _far_ too skinny.

Tom is puffing out gusts of air in the cold morning from the amount of effort his body is going through to keep balance, and Will is proud of him. Prouder than he’s ever been. He turns his face away to bat at the tears that threaten to fall from his eyes.

“Think you’d be able to go on a walk?” Will says tilting his head down to Blake as he stares at his feet in awe.

“I think so, just let me, uh, get my bearings here for a moment.” Tom says slowly, scuffing the toe of his shoe into the dirt.

It’s a frustrating process for Blake to exit the tent area without his steps wavering, cursing harshly at himself under his breath, but Schofield pays it no mind. He could take all the time he needed, even if it meant years. They had time to waste, after all they had been through.

Schofield carefully guides him through the paved routes of the camp, holding onto Blake the whole way through. It feels surreal to have their places swapped, Blake putting his trust completely into Will to guide his steps for him.

A shift from dry dirt to wet puddles causes Blake's boot to get caught in the mud, he stumbles forward and Schofield is quick to put his hand on Blake’s chest.

The frustration Schofield sees in Blake’s blue eyes is startling at first. It’s such a harsh expression for this boy’s young face that it feels almost wrong. He wishes he could wipe away the unpleasantness from this place for him alone. He wishes they could have sent him with somebody else, spare Blake the trauma.

Blake’s breath curls out into the fogged morning air, he’s blinking away tears from his eyes until he trudges forward, forcing himself to move. The soil is desperately trying to bog the both of them down.

“I need a damn bath, and an actual mattress,” Blake says, voice gruff with pure aggravation.

“Don’t we all.” Will says, a smile finding its way onto his face. He hauls Blake alongside him, “Come on now, we’ve got plenty of work to do.”

“You’re sounding pretty chipper for an absolute bastard,” Blake says, huffing large breaths from his nose.

“It’s cause I know we’ll be out of this hellhole eventually, there’s plenty to look forward to. We need to get you strong again, I’ll get you there.” Will purses his lips in concentration, weaving them both past the early morning crowds of soldiers looking to get the first pick from the mess area.

Dawn is breaking slowly, birdsong resounds from far off in the distant fields. Blake is grimacing down at his boots as they wind their way back to the medical tent. Blake pulls at his sleeve to get Will to come to a stop at the side of the dirt path.

They veer in between the space of two command tents, allowing for Blake to catch his breath privately. Blake leans over and puts his hands on his thighs, his upper body parallel to the trampled grass beneath them.

After a moment, Blake clears his throat almost comically, and Schofield stares at the top of his head.

“I want you to know that you— you _shouldn’t_ feel guilty about what happened.” Blake says, purposefully continuing to stare into the dirt, avoiding Will’s hardened face. “We couldn’t have known, and you don’t need to keep doting on me. I can take care of myself.”

Something animalistic rises up in Schofield’s throat. It’s rage that’s been dormant for weeks, he doesn’t know if he can keep it from spilling over.

“Look at me.” Schofield says, voice stern with purpose. “Look up.”

Blake glances up at him, rising slowly as Schofield’s hand shoots out to support his elbow. They’re only a few inches away from each other, but this doesn’t matter to Schofield, he doesn’t give a shit about appearances.

“I will never stop feeling guilty,” Schofield says, putting a hand up as Blake’s jaw drops open immediately to protest, “I won’t ever stop feeling that way, but you must understand I am _not_ doing this out of obligation.”

Blake quiets down, the set of his eyebrows fading away into realization. It’s as much of a confession as Schofield is going to get close to.

Blake’s cheeks turn a ruddy color beneath the dull gray of morning, and Schofield feels as though his ears are on fire. _Shit, said too much._ He offers up his arm again to Blake, taking a slower pace back to the medical tent, with Blake grinning all the while.

━━━

As weeks of waiting turn into months, he’s able to show Tom his spot beneath the single tree out in the grassy field just beyond camp.

He helps Tom sit down beside the trunk, facing the horizon to watch the fading sunlight. Drills have ended for the day, and the only sounds drifting away from the encampment is the clang of pots and the occasional shouting match.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding. Reliving the past out here, yeah?” Blake says, leaning himself back on both palms, he watches the leaves flap in the summer breeze above them.

“Trying to, your brother comes and harasses me eventually from daydreaming. He’s taking your job, you know.”

Tom gives him a toothy, boyish grin, his cheeks are bright with color and the sun is his backdrop, “I’ll make sure to yell at him for it later.”

Schofield is entranced by how normal this appears. It’s incredibly easy to pretend that they’re back in London, not on the front.

Schofield had received a letter back from Blake’s mother weeks ago. She’d thanked him profusely in her neat cursive, praising their efforts and asking him to make sure that her boy was eating right, her eldest included. She’d also invited him to come to their home, _anytime you’d like darling, I’d like to meet you one day._

He’d like to take her up on that offer but it felt… far too personal to accept. Even after helping both of her boys, he felt like an intrusion in his melancholy silence listening to their vibrant stories. The question rattling around in his brain was if it was right to be accepted so easily by them.

Because he couldn’t sometimes help but wonder what it would feel like to press the crease out between Tom’s brows again when dreams made him toss and turn in his cot. His feverish skin burned into the pads of Will’s cold hands.

Both of the Blake’s have a keen way of being able to read Will’s thoughts from just a tick in his facial expression. He wonders if Tom’s brother knows how he feels, or even worse if their mother was able to tell from a single letter.

He shrugs that paranoia off, leaning his head back into the smooth bark of the tree trunk and narrowing his eyes. There will be time to think about that later, he opts to occupy his thoughts with Tom carefully stretching in the rippling fields of bluestem.

“You think we’ll ever get to go home?” Tom says, grunting as he tries extending his arms behind his back. His range of movement has greatly improved with Schofield’s quiet nagging and Joseph’s competitive spirit egging him on.

Schofield smiles at him, “You’ll see your mom soon enough. We’ll be home in a couple weeks time.” Will doesn’t understand why saying this makes his stomach twist into knots.

Tom watches him for a moment, before picking the crushed shoots of bluestem from the soil and winding them into rings. His dark eyelashes dust over his cheeks, casting shadows. “Something in me just can’t believe everything we’ve been through. I’ve been so used to running that it’s— difficult, to get up on my feet again.”

He watches the descent of the sun, the purple evening pulling a shroud over the orange sky. Cicadas incessantly cry out from the tall grasses that span the world before them.

“I can’t say that it’ll become easier for us. But I’m there, should you need me.” Schofield says quietly, “I know we joke around and— well, I thought it should be said out loud.” This is the most alone they’ve been together in recent months, he’s wanted to say this ever since Tom woke up.

Tom stops his worrying hands, knitting his knuckles together in his lap. He clenches his lips together, “I know that. You know it’s the same, for you.”

Will watches as Blake twists off a ring from his hand, holding it in his palm and looking at it for a moment, before thrusting it forward to Will.

“It’s my father’s ring, gave it to me when I was little before he passed. I want you to wear it, now.” Tom says, as though it’s the most logical thing he could do.

Will is at a loss for words for a moment, he opens his mouth but it’s proving difficult to get words out, “I can’t possibly take something so—“

“I _want_ you to have it.” Tom says again, getting up on his knees and shuffling over to him. He takes hold of Will’s stitched up hand and places the gold ring in the center of his palm, folding Schofield’s fingers over it.

“We’ll be leaving each other soon enough, I want you to have something to remember me by. Take it.” The earnestness of Tom’s tone startles something in Will’s chest, he stares blankly at his closed hand.

Will is not certain if he should take it, it’s the man’s damn family heirloom. But his hand moves beyond his own volition, taking the ring and fitting it onto his middle finger. It’s a bit big on him, but he’ll manage, he clenches his hand into a fist.

“You say that as though I’ll forget you.” Will says as he watches the way Tom’s ring glints on his finger. He’d taken it from Tom’s hand months prior when he’d nearly bled to death on the yard of the cattle farm. Their red hands scrabbling against each other as Will tried to protect Tom from the laws of nature with his own force of will, but he couldn’t.

Never did he think he’d be able to keep a piece of Tom. The grassland seems to be still around them, time cannot reach them here.

They look at each other near simultaneously, something strange and pleasant passing through them both.

Schofield gets up from his place beside the tree trunk, extending his uninjured hand downward. Tom’s eyes gleam with delight as he claps his hand into Will’s palm, hauling himself upward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dear medical professionals and history buffs, i apologize only a little bit for the amount of inaccuracies in this. but you read through this whole thing regardless!
> 
> an earnest thank you to mike, who has listened to me violently talk about this movie for the past couple weeks and chose to beta read this for me.
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @ acceptance!


	2. PART 2 // HOMECOMING

The world seems to slow when Schofield is brought home, this time it’s permanent. Even in the middle of London, he feels like an absolute foreigner. He moves in slow motion against the current, the world is rushing steadily alongside it into the call of a promising future. 

The streets he knows are still all intact. The same shops that have been there for years continue to sit on their foundations, and yet Will can’t place where this feeling of alienation comes from. 

The war is finally coming to a close, but he wonders why he can’t shake the pin prick feeling of being watched off of his shoulders. As though somebody out there lurking in the dark is waiting for him to snap and finally be pulled under. 

Will is eternally grateful to be reunited with his family. His sisters welcome him back with tears of anguish, accompanied by screams of pure joy (courtesy of his youngest sisters) as the three of them slam into Will the moment he steps up to their front stoop.

It’s good to be home, not having to look over his shoulder constantly. Safety.

His eyes are horribly puffy and red the first two days he’s home, sleeping in his own bed again does wonders for his posture. He’s not entirely used to the fact that he can roll over on his side and not get a face full of mud.

His sisters won’t leave him alone for weeks on end. If he hadn't just come back from the most traumatic experience he’s had in his life, he’d be basking in their attention. But he just can’t catch his breath. 

Thankfully, they’re keeping him from becoming a recluse by pulling him away from the comfort of his room every morning and ordering him to _get some new damn clothes and see the sun, you look like a ghost._

He thinks of Tom often. When he’s walking through the cobbled streets of London, Will finds himself searching for Tom’s face in the masses of people making their way through the shopping district. Desperately trying to place his features on somebody, so Will could find the peace of mind to sleep without flashbulb nightmares of Tom being dead in his arms.

He doesn’t understand why his scrambled brains can’t come up with one of Tom’s warmth. What it might feel like to kiss him, after an eternity of waiting.

There’s a small comfort in the golden ring that Tom gave him the summer before their leave. He twists it on his finger occasionally to remind himself that he’s connected to Tom somehow, that he’d surely know if something were to happen to him.

Not that he believes in that childlike thought, but still, it clears his head.

Will is doing his best to catch up with what he’s missed. His eldest sister Alma has been doing her best attempting to support their household purely on her own, taking odd jobs and barging in on current political scandals all over London for the local paper. 

She’s enjoying herself and her ink stained fingertips show it, but she’s running dry on money very quickly. Alma’s been trying to get their younger sisters fully through school since Will hasn’t been there to help tutor them.

He quickly finds teaching jobs all around the city, from the richest families to the poorest, he doesn’t care. If he can help people and rid himself of the restless energy coiled in his gut, he’ll do it. 

Will doesn’t have to hurt anybody anymore, but it still feels like he’ll blink for too long and end up appearing in a bombed out crater.

Alma and Will both eat together late in the evenings when they both arrive home late from work. Their wooden kitchen table has a short leg, so they propped it on top of an eraser to keep it from sloping down. It feels incredibly good to cook for himself again instead of scouring a campsite for a shred of stale food. He’s always been the cook for his sisters ever since their parents passed.

Louie and Ann are lounging together in the living room, the occasional screech of laughter they share could rattle glass. 

Another thing he’s realized very quickly about himself after coming home is a newfound tendency for chronic migraines. His sisters yelling in the room over makes his situation entirely worse when the pressure begins to set in around his eyes and forehead.

The medics had told him he shouldn’t have any issues after smacking the back of his head into the bottom of a concrete staircase. He didn’t believe a single word of it. His brains still feel scrambled even months after.

“Getting lost in there?” Alma says, a wide smile stretching across her face as she leans toward him and waves a hand near his face. He bats it gently out of the way.

“Just another migraine, think I’ll be settling in for the night soon.”

Alma watches him with the same intense gaze as Will has. As he gathers up their plates to wash in the sink, she leans back in her chair. “You never told us what happened out there, beyond your letters.” 

“There’s nothing to tell,” Will says, trailing over to the sink and depositing their dirty dishes. He fills it to the brim with lukewarm water, and ties an apron around himself. He can feel Alma’s irritation rising without even looking at her.

“You’re always so secretive.” She says, and he glances back at her with a lopsided smile. Alma has her arms crossed over her chest, she’s thoroughly pissed. “So there’s nothing you want to tell me. My little brother goes to war and comes back with nothing to say.”

He turns back to the sink and scrubs at the plates with a gritty sponge, shrugs his shoulders. “Nothing that you’d like to hear. I don’t want the girls hearing, either. They shouldn’t have to know what it’s like.”

“My little brother returns with a hole in his hand and his head, and also has a gold ring.” He stops for a moment, placing his soapy hands on the brim of the sink. 

“He _also_ neglects to tell me that he met somebody.”

“Alma.” Will says carefully, wiping his hands on the front of his apron and turning around. “How do you know that?”

“Did I not just mention the bloody ring? You also got a letter in the mail this morning, but you were off teaching already. I put it up in your room so that they wouldn’t steal it from you.” She gestures back with her thumb through the open frame that leads directly to the living room. “I didn’t read it, though.”

Will has the urge to clam up even more than before. But he understands her, he knows she’s simply looking out for him. If he were to talk about what happened, would he be able to stop?

“Yes, but how do you _know_ I’m involved with somebody? Could’ve just picked it off someone. And it’s just a letter.”

Alma laughs into her hand, “Like you’d ever do that. I can just tell by the way you’re acting.” She says, her grey eyes glinting beneath the soft lamplight. “You’re usually far off in your own head about most things, but you’re acting… almost impatient.”

Will leans his waist back against the countertop, folding his arms across his chest. She’d like him, he thinks, she’d like him a lot. 

“We had to deliver a message together, I told you that in my last letter.” Will pauses, and Alma nods, _go on._ “He saved my life, and then I saved his, but he couldn’t go any further— he got hurt badly.” 

He can hear Tom’s voice ringing in the back of his thoughts. Will looks down to his feet, and musters up something in himself to keep his voice from wavering.

“I saved his brother by getting that message there on time, he was on the front line. We only had a couple hours to run miles across the countryside to get it to their command.”

She goes silent for a drawn out moment, there’s anger in the way she tightly wraps her arms around her torso. The fabric of her dress sleeves bunching up in between her fingers.

“I wish I could have been there with you.” She starts, putting a knuckle under the bottom of her chin. “There’s no reason they should be sending anybody out there when it’s the fault of those in power—“

“You can curse our government in your own free time, I’m certain your newspaper would love you for it,” Will stops her, a small grin on his face as he watches her face get splotchy with color as her anger reaches its peak. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

Alma doesn’t speak for a moment, suddenly coming back to herself. She leans forward in her chair, flicking her long braid off her shoulder, clears her throat. He slowly unties his apron and puts dried dishes away in their cabinets, giving her time to form the question she’s been dying to ask him the entire time. 

“Do you love him?— this Tom of yours.”

This puts Will in an odd position, he’s never truly thought about it before, has never been able to put the feeling that sits within him into words.

“I took his ring when he offered it to me, I think that I do.” Will says, turning away from the cupboards to look at Alma’s smiling face. Something swells up in his chest.

“I miss him,” Will says, his voice stumbling on syllables. “And I think I’m going to get to bed now.”

She waves Will away with faux dismissiveness as he ambles out through the living room, says a quick good night to Louie and Ann laying on the carpet near the fireplace, then takes the stairs two at a time up to his room. 

True to her word, Alma’s thrown the letter on top of his bedsheets. He stares at it for a moment, partly out of disbelief, and the fear about what it might contain. 

The possibility that something could have gone wrong since the time they’d last seen each other was entirely possible. 

His feet feel like lead, forcing him to stay put in the middle of his bedroom.

The tremor in his left hand starts, it’s been getting worse recently. He won’t forget how badly it shook when he had to say goodbye to Tom during their last day together on the front, it shakes the same way.

He clenches his hand into a fist repeatedly, extends it out before himself until the shaking subsides. Now isn’t the time for this.

Will counts in his head the seconds as they pass, slows his anxious breathing as he sinks to his mattress in the corner of the room. He picks it up with religious importance, stares at Tom’s blocky handwriting on the envelope and finds himself smiling. He tears open the seal carefully, picking out the folded paper within and finding something slipping out from the corner. 

He opens the folded paper, the Blakes stare back at him in grainy black and white. They both look exactly like their mother, much less curly hair, but the same full cheeks.

Will stands and paces while he reads the letter, his hands slowly crease the corners of the thin paper. His finger traces a cherry blossom petal glued onto the side of the page. Will’s eyes flick through it within moments, he reads it over again until the words become blurred. His mouth thins, expression crumpling as he sits back down onto his bedside. 

The intensity of his relief and his sadness sits on the back of his shoulders, pushing him down to set aside the letter and weep into his hands. Tom’s fine, doing just _fine,_ and Will can hear his voice in his ear as he reads through his words.

His longing is a heavy weight inside of him, the need to see Tom is all encompassing. After these months apart, Will’s patience has been worn through with holes.

All at once, he decides he’ll take up the invitation he’d been offered on behalf of Blake's mother those months ago. He has to see Tom.

━━━

Winter sets in slowly over England, dusting the green fields with an ethereal white. The snow is so bright he grimaces each time he looks out into the distance, sparking the thrum of a headache at the base of his neck.

Soon there’ll be no green at all, with the early days of December rolling in, the holidays are soon to arrive. 

Will won’t be home for Christmas this year, but he finds himself hardly caring. He’s got his own plans. He left his family a generous amount of money despite Alma’s pleading for him to _keep it Will, dear lord._ Each of his sisters were left with early gifts, and he whisked himself away as soon as the first snow arrived.

The thick wool of Will’s scarf chafes at the sides of his neck as he walks down the gravel road, his leather shoes are scraped to hell at this point. His steps come down heavy as exhaustion builds in his calves. 

He taps his hand on the tops of mossy stones stacked up at the side of the road as he passes beside them. This area of the country is old, a glorified farming community. Will is incredibly thankful that the Blake’s are removed from the city, it means less tension headaches in the weeks to come, if all goes well.

The town is much calmer than the horrific city noise Will has become used to his entire life, people take notice of him as he passes through, asking for directions to landmarks that Tom described in his letter. 

He takes his time walking to the Blake farm, his heart racing all the while. Will doesn’t even know what he’ll say to Tom, what he might do. 

The snow falls thicker overhead, snowflakes sticking in the tufts of his hair and on his shoulders, his puffs of breath come out thicker in the open air. He comes to an abrupt stop, looks to the house a short distance away, and loses the breath in his chest. 

The Blake home is a moderately sized farmhouse, an orchard spanning the left side of the house. Stone and sun bleached wood, a sturdy place to live, it suits them perfectly. 

Will doesn’t think of the cattle farm worlds away with a bloodstained lawn, he trudges forward through the snowy field. 

The front door of the house bursts open, and a brown dog shoots out onto the porch and bounds through the snow, barking all the way to Will’s frozen feet. She jams her body affectionately up against Will’s legs and nearly sends him toppling over until a sharp whistle breaks her from the spell. 

“Myrtle! Come on now!” 

_Tom._

Will watches numbly as Tom hops off the porch steps, trudging his way down the snowy path and stops himself a few meters away from Will. Tom’s grown his hair out from the typical military cut, an odd feeling blooms in Will’s chest. He’s different and yet completely the same, they both are.

Will doesn’t realize he’s sinking to the ground until Tom rushes toward him, kicking up mounds of snow beneath his boots in his hurry. Tom holds Will’s elbows, grappling onto him and holding him close. _He’s real_ , Will thinks, the pressure on his arms proves this. 

“Hullo there,” Tom says, his mouth open and puffing out steam. Will’s hand cups the side of his face, thumb rubbing over his cheekbone. Tom’s eyes get teary, his chin wobbles. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Will pulls Tom into his chest, arms wrapping around his shoulders in a vice grip. He sets his chin on top of Tom’s curls and blinks away tears that threaten to fall. “Felt like years,” Will says, then swallows to regain his voice, “God, it was terrible.”

Tom laughs into Will’s shoulder, sniffing loudly as he pulls away from him to rub beneath his nose. Will finds the blue of Tom’s eyes startling against the backdrop of pure white. “I know. Let’s get you inside, you’re damn well _frozen_ mate.”

Will can’t feel his body anyways, he’s too caught up in his adrenaline high to truly notice the blue of his hands, he lets himself be led into their home by his wrist.

━━━

Will is seated on the ground near the roaring fireplace, bundled in a quilt that Tom’s mother forced him to wear. The sun has set hours ago beyond the wood walls of their home, casting the horizon in a deep purple.

Tom’s gone into town to pick up some last minute groceries to accommodate for Will’s stay. When Will attempted to hand him the money he’d saved up for this exact purpose, Tom scoffed at him and said, “You think it works like that ‘round here?” then walked out the door into the thickening sheets of snow.

He’s not entirely sure where Joseph is, something about work in town and how he’s only home late in the evening.

Their mother hovers around Will, her worry almost palpable in the air that surrounds her. She’s got tighter curls and an exuberance that appears to be genetic. It’s incredibly endearing.

“Doing alright there, love?” She asks when he glances over to her. She folds towels into a basket at the side of her.

“I’m fine, thank you.” Will says quietly, turning his attention back to the fire.

“My boys have told me much about you, but I’m afraid they didn’t tell me much of the important bits,” she says, watching the formless shape of Schofield’s shoulders swamped over by the heavy quilt. 

“Do you have any children?” She asks, and he thinks of his youngest sisters teetering down the hallway of their flat. He thinks of the French woman and the baby squeezing his finger in some dreary basement, far far away.

Will wonders if she knows about them, if it’s some sort of test.

“No ma’am, I’ve just got my younger sisters,” Will huffs softly, “they’re practically my kids, in a sense. Our parents have been gone for a long time, now.” He’s bewildered with himself, staring down at his fingers bunched together, why the hell is he telling all of this to her?

Will turns himself away from the fire to look at her. Her hands are paused over a folded stack of clothes and towels, she tilts her head to the side. “We’re lucky to have you here, was wonderin’ when you’d come around.”

“I didn’t wish to intrude.”

“After what Tom’s told me about you two?” She says, and Will’s eyebrows raise. “You’re both not entirely subtle about it. You’ve got to be careful, love.”

She goes back to her folding, Will finds himself particularly exposed. He presses his lips together and bows his head down, looks like Tom’s had his own conversation about their particular relationship.

“I hope it’s not bothersome to you— for us to be involved in that way.”

She’s quiet for a moment, her features soften. “Doesn’t hurt nobody, now does it?” She looks at Schofield, “As long as you’re good to my boy, then I’ve got no problem—”

Their conversation is interrupted by a chorus of Myrtle’s loud barking alongside two other entirely identical dogs. 

Two sets of boots scruff on the floorboards of the walk-in, Joseph's laugh is thunderous as Tom says something beneath his breath. Joseph enters the living room before Tom does, his expression pure delight when he sees Schofield sitting on the floor.

“My god, it's like I’ve seen a ghost,” Joseph laughs, sinking down to his knees to jam himself into Will’s space, his hug crushing the breath out of his chest. “How long are you staying with us?”

“Till the end of spring!” Tom calls from the kitchen, he can hear the spill of bags on the floor and obnoxious strings of cursing soon after.

Joe pulls away from him and pats his shoulders firmly. “We’ll put you to work, it’ll be good to have an extra set of hands around here.” He smiles wolfishly, “It’s good to have you, Will. Sit tight, we’ll have dinner done soon enough.”

Will watches him trail his way into the kitchen, his mother following along behind him. It’s only moments before Tom is pushed out, a trail of dogs in his wake. He sets eyes on Will and immediately flops beside him on the floor, resting the back of his head against Will’s thigh. The dogs crowd around them for a moment before scampering off to the kitchen once more.

“I see you’ve made yourself comfortable.” Tom says, his voice has a gentle raspy quality to it. The rhythmic crack of the wood in the fireplace is a soothing background noise, orange tones falling over the smooth planes of Tom’s face.

“All thanks to your mother.” Will says, placing a cold hand on Tom’s forehead.

Tom’s eyes droop closed, he folds his hands together over his stomach, crosses his legs at his ankles. “Did you enjoy my letters?”

“My sisters did most of all, they dubbed you a modern romantic. Their words, not mine.” Will smiles slyly. He listens to the faint sizzle of something in the kitchen, the click of nails on tile. “I kept them.”

Tom makes a pleased noise from his chest, eyes opening and staring up at Will’s face. The physical intimacy they share is sating the itch present in the back of his head for months on end. Any initial fears Will had about what they were to each other fade away with the rise and fall of Tom’s chest, how he turns his head slightly inward to Will’s body.

“Tom! Let’s eat!” Comes the shrill call of Mrs. Blake. It sets them both back into reality, Tom jolting upward with the almost instinctive rumble of his stomach. Will stands and neatly folds the quilt, placing it on top of the plush couch that’ll be his bed for the next few months.

Plates are set at the small kitchen table, and they each get to eating mounds of brisket almost immediately. 

Mrs. Blake primly scoops up a spoonful of mashed potatoes near the rim of her plate. She clears her throat noisily. “So, I can meet Tom’s boy, but _you_ can’t bring home the girl you’ve been sneaking around with?

Joseph almost coughs up a lung on a piece of meat, she pats him harshly on the back.

“Ma, I’ve told you before—”

“No reason to play around with a girl’s feelings like that,” She redirects her focus to Will. “Your sisters, how would you react if some boy did that with one of them?”

Will blinks at her, then looks over to Tom who shrugs and continues eating. _Not my problem._

“Well, I don’t believe we’ll be having much of an issue like that for Alma and Louie,” Will pauses, blinking down at his plate and continuing to cut up a piece of his brisket and taking it to his mouth, “Their preferences don’t lie there, though I can’t say the same for Ann.”

Tom disguises a laugh as a cough behind the back of his hand, Will gingerly slaps him on the back, smiling at Mrs. Blake.

Dinner passes with relative ease, their mother badgering Will only slightly for more information on his home life. He watches the way Tom’s easy expression lights up, his gestures wide and animated as he recounts stories from the front. Will tells him repeatedly to quit talking with his mouth full.

This was the part that was missing for so long, Tom’s ridiculous knack for storytelling and squinty smiles. Will bumps his knee against Tom’s beneath the tablecloth when he gets off track with his tangents.

Tom gathers up their emptied plates, Joseph straightens out the table, and Mrs. Blake washes down their dishes with impressive speed. She waves both Tom and Will away, “Go spend some time alone together, I’ll leave you both alone until dessert’s ready.” 

Tom leads them both out of the kitchen, the swarm of dogs bashing themselves into Will’s legs, smelling his hands and gnawing at his fingertips for any nonexistent scraps. 

“Are they always so— so ridiculous?” Will laughs, scrubbing one of them behind the ears, he’s not entirely certain of their names, the three of them look exactly alike.

“If we had the entire bunch of eight puppies, this house would be a little more like a barn.” Tom looks to Will, and tips his head sideways to the stairs. “Let’s go to my room, then.” 

━━━

It’s odd, to say the very least, to see Scho sitting on his bed wearing his mother’s quilt as a cape. Tom had hoped he’d come someday to their home, but he never thought it would be so soon. 

He’s not ungrateful for Will’s company by any means, but there’s just a hint of unreality to the entire day as a whole. Tom hasn’t had many of his hopes granted so plainly before, he hopes that might continue.

They lounge together, sitting on opposite ends of his bed, comparing scars like kids. The scrapes that never healed properly on Scho’s knuckles from some schoolyard fight ages ago; the indents in Tom’s knees from skidding on pavement, _thought I was nearly dyin’ from these_.

The softness of Will’s features shocks Tom, it’s amazing what months of proper sleep and good meals can do to a person’s complexion. He just seems… so much more brighter. The telltale signs of dark circles ringing his eyes are only whispers of how they’d used to look.

The way he smiles is different, too. Much more toothy, the skin around his eyes crinkles as it fills his face. 

Tom thinks he loves him. At this point, he’s pretty certain Will might love him too, he’s come out all the way to the middle of the countryside for him. The hard part was attempting to say this out loud. 

Will scoots closer to Tom with a shift of the mattress, pushing up the sleeve of his knit sweater and revealing a deep scar on the outer swell of his bicep.

“Bullet grazed me, long before we knew each other.” Will says as Tom runs his fingers across the faded skin, observes the veins and moles dotting along Will’s skin.

Tom gets a sudden burst of confidence, and stands from the bed, “You’re not gonna believe how this thing looks,” Tom says, taking a few steps backward, sucking in a breath to calm the racing of his heart.

Tom bares his stomach to Scho, rucking up his shirt with one hand and exposing the oddly shaped pink scar on his side. He feels like patchwork, sewn together just barely. He pointedly does not look at Scho and instead looks at his scar, instead.

It’s a gruesome thing, now it’s forever part of him.

“It’s healed up alright since we came home, ma’s been making her own salves for it— not sure if it’s doing anything to help it look normal, though.”

Schofield is silent for a moment, steps up from Tom’s bed, and starts toward him. Tom drops his shirt back down instinctively, he doesn’t want him seeing it up close. But Schofield is adamant against that, hovering in his space. 

He didn’t truly realize the starkness of their height difference until now. It makes Tom want to stomp Schofield’s damn foot—

“Let me see,” Scho says quietly, blond eyelashes downcast, his hand hovers just above his shirt, his scar lay directly beneath. Tom pulls back into himself. 

“Scho, it looks real bad up close—“

“I don’t care, please, let me see it.”

Tom’s temper flares, he stares at Scho beneath the furrow of his brows. He lifts his shirt again, turning his head to look at the spot on the wall just next to his windowsill. Scho looks at his scar carefully, his cold fingers passing over the ridges of it. 

“Your damn cold hands,” Tom mutters, his face feels bright with warmth. He didn’t even lock his damn _door._

“Sorry, I just wanted to, uh, feel it.” Schofield says a bit dumbly, he’s transfixed by his scarring, and Tom is surprised when he looks and finds no disgust on Schofield’s face. His expression is an odd combination of fascination and relief.

He doesn’t know how he should properly react to that, but he feels himself growing warmer by the second. 

“You’re not reacting exactly how I thought you might,”

Scho frowns, “It’s proof you’re still here. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed over.” 

Scho’s palm rests over his scar, then slides itself across Tom’s skin and fits into his side, his opposite hand resting in parallel over the fabric of his shirt. A question is being asked in the way Scho’s fingers curl into him. There’s something possessive in the way Scho holds him, Tom finds his shyness fading.

“Are you expecting something?” Tom asks lightly, smirking up at Will’s face. “I’m no mind reader.”

Will watches his lips as he talks, and he’s leaning heavily into Tom, his neck craning forward until he slouches and huffs something frustrated into the crook of Tom’s neck. “You’re killing me, Blake.”

“No first name basis anymore?”

“Not after all the teasing you put me through, no.” Schofield says, then bites a mark near the base of Tom’s neck out of spite.

“Hey now— not too much,” Tom warns him, then jumps as he hears the scuff of his ma’s house slippers down the hall, coming dangerously close to his door. They part with impressive speed, Scho diving to lay out casually on Tom’s bed, and Tom stumbling to sit on his desktop just beneath his window.

The creak of the brass handle sounds as his door is twisted open, Tom’s mother popping her head in slowly, her eyebrows raising as she surveys the room, eyes landing on Schofield.

“Oh, lovely, you’re both decent. Dessert’s ready whenever you’d like to come down.” She says, then slips out of the room, the door slightly ajar. Tom listens to the shuffle of her house slippers fade down the stairs.

Their silence stretches for a moment. They both look at each other, and Tom has to desperately hold in his laughter behind his hand as Will’s face melts into the fear he concealed. Will noisily flips onto his back with a whine of the bed springs. 

“Think she might kill me, actually.” Will says, folding his arms over his eyes, leg dangling over the side of Tom’s bed, his chest sinking as he exhales.

“She’ll only kill you if you don’t eat her pastries,” Tom says, standing and slapping Will’s knee. “Come on now.”

Tom watches as Will sits upright and fussily gathers himself up, pulling the bottom of his sweater to fit it properly against his torso. 

He’s overcome with the sudden need to kiss him. It’s been on his mind since he saw him coming up the snowy hill to their home. 

Tom reaches for him without thinking, tilts Will’s chin up with his knuckle to look him in the eyes, he can feel Will’s throat bob as he swallows. He leans down and kisses him softly, a touch of his lips at first, until Will’s hand comes up behind him and urgently holds Tom by the neck, fingers curling into his hair.

He hasn’t done this kind of thing much before, on account of living in a relatively small town, there’s not many options. 

Will clearly knows what he’s doing, because he tries parting Tom’s lips with his tongue and angles himself just so—

His frantic heartbeat echoes in his ears, he backs away from Will, breaks it off. Tom doesn’t want to go downstairs looking like an absolute mess.

“Don’t get too carried away,” Tom says, trying to steady his voice. His cheeks are on fire.

Will smiles at him, leaning back on his palms and looking too pleased with himself, “‘m sorry, I can’t help it.”

Tom’s thoughts feel numbed out, he’s a bit glad Will is going to be sleeping on the couch in the living room. The longing that washes over him is what possesses him to card his fingers back through Will’s hair, blunt fingernails scraping against his scalp.

“There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” Tom says, forcing himself to pull his hands away from Will and slipping away from his space, standing by his bedroom door. Will stares at him from the bed, his eyes look a little hazy. 

Tom clears his throat, “Well come on— let’s get goin’. Dear lord.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, you can find me @ acceptance on tumblr!


End file.
